Quotes from Vivek Murthy

Our health care workers are the heroes of the Covid-19 response.

There's a tremendous sense of shame that people who are lonely feel. I say that as someone who felt ashamed of being lonely as a child and even at points during adulthood.

When I look at the patients that I've cared for with mental illness, I know that many of them took years to come forward and tell somebody that they were in pain and that they needed help.

I grew up in Miami, Florida and the Miami Heat were my favourite team growing up. In fact, the franchise started when I was here in high school, I believe. My favourite player, growing up at that time on the Miami Heat, was Rony Seikaly but in the years since, Dwyane Wade, also an icon for the Miami Heat, has become my favourite player.

It turns out the most powerful way we can turn the tide on chronic disease is something we have been doing for millennia: That is walking.

Most parents vaccinate their kids. That is the bottom line.

A few colleagues and I began Doctors for America with a simple belief that physicians should play a leadership role in designing and running our nation's health care system.

Sometimes when you get sick and you go to the doctor, it can feel like you didn't get your money's worth if you don't come away with a pill. I've had many, many conversations with patients who I've cared for over the years about why it's actually in some cases better not to go home with antibiotics.

Surgeon generals are appointed by presidents, but our work isn't about politics. Our highest duty to to the public. Our true guide is science. Our job is to speak the truth about public health, even when it's controversial or perceived as political.

I do not intend to use the Surgeon General's Office as a bully pulpit for gun control.

When I went through my confirmation hearing to serve as surgeon general they asked me what my priorities would be and I didn't list loneliness in that priority list because it was not one at the time.

Without strong communities, we cannot pull together during times of hardship. Our diversity turns from a source of strength to a source of conflict.

My journey to working on loneliness was certainly not an expected one or planned one.

You can be surrounded by many people but still feel quite lonely if you don't have strong connections and if you feel you can't be yourself with them. Conversely, you can just be around a few people, but feel deeply connected to them.

So my weakness is sweets. I like bread pudding and cheesecake in particular.

Emotions are a source of power, and that's what science tells us. But many people I encounter have been led to think of emotions as a source of weakness.

Science tells us more and more now that there is a strong connection between emotional well-being and health outcomes, and that you can proactively cultivate emotional well-being through relatively simple practices like sleep, social connection and meditation.

I think of emotional well-being as a resource within each of us that allows us to do more and to perform better. That doesn't mean just the absence of mental illness. It's the presence of positive emotions that allows us to be resilient in the face of adversity.

We have to recognize that we can help increase happiness of other people by reaching out, and building connections. People have done that for me in my life. There have been many times that my family and friends have reached out to help support me and contributed to my emotional wellbeing, and ultimately to my health.

When it comes to creating emotional wellbeing, we are only going to achieve this, I believe, if we help each other in that effort. Part of that is reaching out and building social connections in people who may not always have the social connections or the support that they need.

We can no longer remain within our exam rooms and ignore what happens in our communities. As physicians and dentists, we must have a presence in both places. Our sacred responsibility is both to help the patient in front of us and also to safeguard the health of the nation.

Despite growing up in very poor circumstances, my father had big dreams.

I firmly believe that everybody in America needs a safe place to walk or to wheelchair roll.

Whenever you have large numbers of people who are dying for preventable reasons, that constitutes a public health issue.